


Empathy

by Sinfulpapillon



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Child Death, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Psychopathology & Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 13:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13389168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinfulpapillon/pseuds/Sinfulpapillon
Summary: What happens when a psychopath uses a miraculous entirely focused around feeling other people's emotions?





	Empathy

He was visiting the lair more and more frequently.    
  
Part of him felt this was a weakness. After all, logically, it was. He was letting  _ feelings _ , of all things, start to govern his actions. Yes, sure, he’d felt feelings before. Well, in a way. After all, the entire reason he was doing this was to get back what was rightfully his and he supposed that must take a certain amount of attachment. Granted, those feelings weren’t like this. These feelings were….  _ colorful _ .    
  
Was that the right way to describe it? It was hard to pin down a good term. Perhaps it was the artist in him, but he had never been good at describing feelings, having barely had them during his lifetime. Despite his way with words, he wouldn’t have made much of a writer, being unable to describe the thought processes of someone of a more typical mind. However, if he had to paint the way it felt, there would be bright colors all across the canvas, perhaps in a watercolor, melded together in a big flurry of brilliance.    
  
That was what emotions felt like.    
  
For someone who had been born starved of proper emotional ability, Gabriel hadn’t realized what he was getting into when he got the Butterfly miraculous and, thereafter, inherited its empathy. Everything was so, so very new. Even sadness, disappointment, anger… they were just so  _ colorful _ . People always described them terribly. What they described didn’t at all represent just how  _ glorious _ they could be. It was amazing, really. Sometimes, they could even make him feel something  _ physically _ from the strength of it!   
  
Wasn’t that  _ amazing? _   
  
Yes, sometimes it could be too much. Sometimes the emotions could even make him act rash and do stupid things. At that point, he had to accept that sometimes he needed a break. He had to stop at some point and go back to the emotionally dulled (but  _ far _ more methodical) state his mind was in normally. He had to stay focused enough to keep his plans in check and remember that the emotions most got weren’t always beneficial.    
  
Yes, they could be enjoyable at times, he’d admit, but he would’ve never succeeded as much as he had in life if he’d fallen prey to the disaster a typical mind could be. If he felt these emotions all the time, it would be a nuisance really. How often would he have second-guessed himself out of acting on things he needed to if he had let emotions run those decisions? It was better to simply plan everything. He could plan out how to approach people, what to say to appeal to them, what to do to gain their trust, how to get them to do what he wanted, and everything in between.   
  
Granted, that was harder now at home. He knew some ways to appease his son and try to keep him around, but he was falling short in all the areas that his wife had been able to aid him in before. He needed her back in order to keep his family unit working properly again. While he provided the order, structure, and connections, his wife had provided the emotion, nurturing, and would give him clues when he wasn’t approaching things ‘normally.’   
  
She had understood. Adrien wasn’t likely to.   
  
Nathalie could fill some of the gaps his wife left behind, but she was closer to him on the emotional spectrum than was truly helpful. Sometimes, she could help remind him of social cues he was missing and things he needed to do with Adrien to keep up at least a portion of the act, but she oftentimes had the same faults. She lacked a lot of the nurturing side Adrien needed so badly. This just wasn’t going to work long term.    
  
He needed to get Adrien's  _ real _ mother back. He wanted to be the best father he could be, but he, admittedly, couldn’t be that without the best  _ mother _ around. He needed a family system that worked again because the current one most certainly wasn’t that. It was annoying, sometimes even aggravating.    
  
Failure always was aggravating.   
  
Yet, he thought he understood aggravation, but when he’d be transformed and things might start going downhill in his attempts, his aggravation and disdain was on an entirely different level. It was enough to throw embarrassing temper tantrums and feel broken in a way he didn’t understand. He could get that feeling like he was physically ill from it all some days. It was so foreign and so exhausting. He’d even almost killed his son a few times in his rage. One of the very people he was doing this to benefit! That was  _ insane _ . 

There were even times when he'd tune in to specific situations just to try and gain a better understanding of how people felt in those situations. It originally was with the intention to simulate those responses when appropriate, but it steadily became a more and more frequent pastime. His curiosity would ruin him eventually, what with how often he'd started to do this. 

He'd allowed himself to feel the emotions of a mourning husband, seeking understanding and yet wondering if it could even fit to his situation. Yet, after he'd moved away from that, he'd reached up to find tears on his cheeks. It was strange, to say the least, but he decided he shouldn't think too hard about it. 

He'd felt the emotions of a woman being mugged, pure terror coursing through him. It was dizzying, yet thrilling. Was this how most people felt like when they feared for their well-being? His heart rate was heightened, his form tensing up and his entire body pulsating. In a way, it was similar (and yet distinctly different) from sex. While there was a rush from it, though, he decided he could still have an equivalent to the feeling that was more controllable. He moved on. 

He felt the anger of a drunken father, coming home from the bar to find his child had made a mess in his absence. There was rage, feeling hot and confusing. It was strong, stronger than he expected in response to what the child did. He could understand anger at a disrespecting child, but this seemed like a bit much for-

**Red** . Pure, unrelenting  **_RED_ ** .

Rage mixed with terror in the exchange, leaving Gabriel dizzy and nauseous. Was he sweating? He felt like his heart was going to hammer out of his chest. What was-?

And then the terror was silenced.

He hadn't realised he'd fallen to the floor until he was opening his eyes, fighting down bile with each movement as he tried to sit up. He was ready to abandon that emotional disaster until he felt the father's emotions upon realizing what he'd done. There was regret, fear...sadness.

Gabriel didn't understand. Why kill his child if it held no gain for him? If he would only regret it and even mourn the loss, then why do it in the first place? Had his anger really taken so much of his control from him?

Emotions were far too dangerous, he concluded. This level of emotional stimulation only lead to disaster. Why did people consider minds like  _ his _ the ruined ones when their minds were so volatile? It was ridiculous.    
  
Except, in a way, he understood now. For the very reason he kept doing it and the very reason he was currently sitting alone in his lair just taking it in.   
  
The watercolors were too addicting. It was near impossible to not let them consume you.    
  
Maybe this time he'd focus on a family sitting down with each other, simply enjoying their company. He found himself focusing in on a quaint little family in a bakery. The longer he focused, the more he realised that he recognized the daughter. She was a classmate of Adrien's, wasn't she? The one that won his design contest. Yes, it had to be. This family, though… There were no fights, no worries, no regrets. All the household contained was only a warmth he wanted to hold on to for as long as possible. 

Was this what love felt like?

He had a particular  _ fondness _ for his wife and child and that was the closest he could imagine love would feel like, but this? This was so much stronger, so much warmer. It felt so, so wonderful.

He wished he could produce at least  _ that _ emotion naturally. It was such a wonderful emotion to have. No wonder Adrien craved it so much. Maybe if he could feel this without the aid of magic, things would be less complicated. Maybe then Adrien could get a well-rounded parent like he deserved, instead of just one half of the whole.

Maybe then he wouldn't have to be Hawkmoth.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't say I really understand how a psychopath feels (I have way too much anxiety to even think that I could), but I hope my research could do it justice. I wanted to accurately portray psychopathy in a situation that would test the limits of it, which turned out to be more complicated and tough than I expected. I hope I got things at least close to accurate. I don't know if Gabriel would actually qualify as a psychopath but I can definitely see it as an interpretation that would work. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed it! Thanks for reading!


End file.
